BLACK OPALS
BLACK OPALS FROM NEVADA:
The rarest and most valuable opals are bright colors on black. Black background opals show off the rainbows of fire, or play of color, the best. Super gem bright opal is that which you can't see through to the background opal color. A lot of "black" opal is some background behind a bright crystal.
The Virgin Valley gem opal production is only a tiny percentage of the commercial opal industry. BUT our cut blacks play of color is unmatched by any other opal in the world. The different formation makes for a style of fire play that's unusual to say the least. It also makes many craze when dried too fast, possibly from the charcoal or manganese contained in them, or it could be the sulfur, who knows. We just know we lose most to drying somehow and a small percentage is as good as any opal on earth. Just like Mexican opals or the new field; the Welo opals.
Specimen gem rough can be just optically stunning, while being physically interesting to boot, with natural pseudomorph forms. That means that we get perfect casts in precious opal of ancient plants such as twigs, pinecones, and branches that range up to log opals that weigh pounds.
Miners say "specimen" a lot because a large number of the bigger pieces are bought for mineral displays, not for cutting rough. When dried, most large opals become small opals or cracked, as the water that is an essential part of them evaporates. All opal eventually loses this water and cracks they say. Australian experts talking about their opal included.
Black twig cast with excellent definition and play of color. This specimen from our mine is on display at the Winnemucca BLM office.
They are cut up for use in jewelry only after being dried for a period of time. I dry mine for months before even worrying about what to cut. If you want to save the specimens at the first cracks you have to watch them for a few hours at least. I dry most of the wood with opal specimens when found because the wood matrix holds the pieces together after being washed off. Out of water and onto a board in the desert...torture is a good description of the proving process I use. Then they are dry and colorful cachalon opal that looked good damp is now whited out. Cut the small pieces and marvel at the big. The blacks here are rare as down under and with much more root beer glass found than true blacks. Still, the dark crystal and jelly opal can be huge and commonly weigh ounces.
Lit by a quartz shop light at a 90 degree angle, Evening Starfire shows both play of color in moving tubes of rainbows and Contra Luz in waves. You can see thru the black crystal opals. This black opal was on the cover of GOLD PROSPECTOR magazine. It was pictured and named Evening Starfire in the ROCK & GEM article by James Mulkey; "Opals of Nevada" in Rock and Gem Magazine. Museum sized gem specimens are one of Virgin Valleys' treasures everybody into opal want.
Swordfish Mine opal is on display in Gaumers Rock Museum; Red Bluff, CA amoung others. This mine and mineral display museum, with a modern rock shop, is well worth stopping at. The Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine outside Helena, MT also has several excellent casts and gemstone fossils.
In 2003 Leah found this large black opal "core" on OUR MINE. A core is a hollow limb cast in the clay, empty but for the opal mass laying in the hole un-attached. 190 Grams in 2 pieces. The limb was segmented prior to precious opalization. A N1 black crystal opal. It has that distinctive Nevada burning fire on all sides and reddish multicolor harlequin on the top and bluish multicolor harlequin on the bottom with a brightness of 3 out of 5. Swordfish Mining has many various gfrade opals from our black and other opal claims.
The pieces have no cracks or crazing and were never dried. The larger half is in a custom heavy duty Pyrex glass display with a black rubber stopper. This opal measures 4 !/2" by 1 3/4". The Asteria harlequin pattern is visible from all sides giving a different view of the bars, tubes, flames. Unpolished, it has red, green, blue, and yellow rainbow rolling bars. A 1" wide color band 360 degrees around. My smaller one to the left is what it would look like polished. Electric bright shifting pillars of full rainbow multicolor's.
Swordfish Mining has several large opal specimens both dry woods and wet casts for sale. Several are larger diameter opal limbs with bright veining. Requests are filled on a first come first served basis and all opals pictured are subject to prior sale.
Any of the never dried wet opals may change appearances on drying and are therefore sold as specimens only with no assurances of dry ability or cut ability. I'm in no way responsible for them being dried out after being shipped unless it is due to breakage during shipment. You would have to file the claim immediately with the carrier on seeing the damaged wet package. Really, the way I pack them, the box has to be smashed for them to be exposed.
If one dries good - congratulations you beat the odds. If not, you're the one who dried it out, and what you see is what you have. They can now be made into something that the drying question has been answered. You can restore it back as a specimen by some sort of treatment and then polishing it if desired. Immersing them in Glycerine or mineral oil wets them and hides the fractures well. Each wet specimen dome comes with instructions for display, storage, and the continued care while in storage. You can polish or have them polished while wet without ever drying them out to increase their eye appeal.
Wet pieces (over 1" chunks) start at $25 each. This rough all has precious play of color except the occasional wonderful specimens of contra luz opal or pastel glowing specimens. These wet opals are not sold as cutters. You must state you want a non precious one before I would send a pure specimen. None of these lower cost opals are solid blacks with no cracks. The black is only a minor part of most stones and is usually not as bright as the white or crystal. Wet chunks are displayed in domes or closed jars unless gambling on that they might dry to be polished and set. They all have some play of color showing and not skin to skin either.
Contra Luz is where the play of color shows with the opal held up to the light. A good quarter of all the clear non-precious areas have contra-luz color. The precious and common areas don't show contra luz play of color. Opals are very difficult to photograph well.
DOMED SPECIMENS are filled with Virgin Valleys pure artesian spring water. Domes of bright cuttable, IF they dried pieces, are generally sold at a huge discount of the proven dry rough cost. I don't open domes to split up the parcel. Any single stone is individually priced by how rare it is from experience, not by comparisons to what others are willing to sell one single one for. That's the gemstone business; All individuals out for themselves, so buy that one offered by others and don't beat my chops about it. While buying it you find out what they have to say about it to rate their opinions/skill.
I'm tired of calls about NOT MY OPAL. I'm in business to sell my products, not to help every other recreational digger try to compete with me. Please don't ask me to provide you with free appraisal services. That is normally a 10% of the appraised value fee from any certified insurance appraiser. So what IS a opal over an ounce with multi color 360 degree fire worth? I've never seen anything the size of our stones in stores.
How about one that looks like ever changing colors of tiles in black grout???
Conk not Dinosaur bone....SOLDHere's a short video of a natural black opal from our mine.
Opal fresh from the ground. Unpolished natural pristine gemstones. These exceptional stones each deserve their own display dome. Wet specimens are raw opals freshly washed, but never dried.
The surface wrinkles are not cracks penetrating the opal and they look waxy.
Skin to skin play of color, a true rainbow multicolor. Measures 1 1/2 " x 1 1/2" x 1" over an ounce.
This opal is one of 4 pieces of a crystal branch that has a ghost, or white inclusion down the center. This has it's own broad flash winking play of color. It is Green multi color showing some harlequin from one angle
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These two remaining sections are priced at $800 and 600.
There are many domes or parcels of smaller pieces in a wide variety.
Sold
Fossiliferous opals from our digging on the Bonanza Mine. 2 pcs great twig casts. $275
These light in body tone opals come from any of the mines. A well cast twig with inclusion (a root) running from one end to the other. Along with an assortment of gem bright pieces representing the state gemstone well.
$286Another view showing the root inclusion better.
Bright contra Luz wet chunks with root casts start at $25.
This next long (over 3") Specimen was mined at The Royal Peacock Opal Mine fee dig. Leah found this Black Precious Opal the same day the Travel Channel filmed "The Best Places in America to Find Cash and Treasure 1." We're in part 2 of the series of 3 that first aired in 2004. The segment with us shows her picking at the bank as the show starts. Our interviews were edited out along with every mention of Opaholism. I think the producers wanted to downplay the addictive and obsessive nature (like gold fever) of any sort of treasure hunters. All you see of me (other than picking in the background) is my hand displaying one of the opals I found that day.
$675 Very bright opal on a off green base with some wood structure. The outside has been polished to display the extent of color play. The opal fills an undulating layer around the limbcast. This came from the mines clay bank with the outside layer crazing off. Most opals that will craze usually start immediately. The core appears more solid so far. Some opals are just that way. The insides and the outsides are of different compositions of opal. Wet specimens won't change when kept wet. Most will clean up brighter. A dental pick or Dremmel tool is usually used to follow the contours of the fire layers when carving baroques.
I don't always find something, but usually do quite well. But alas, I was edited out of the TV special in favor of even nicer opals that were found by some folks from Washington on vacation. They also edited out most of Lenny Markeys' (owner of The Opal Queen Mine) explanation of the local geology forming opals and the Opalholics as return visitors.
As a side note no one else has told you...When the Travel Channel was at the Bonanza (the next season show on Virgin Valley); My friend Steve mined out a very nice black and showed it to us all through the TV also. Well, years ago now, he asked me if I'd like to see it again. It looked better than what Becky saw. It was DRY and looking real good.
This little twig could really make a wood collectors day. Great outside surface features reproduction with a gem bright center that faces out well.
Mr. Liddicoat of the Gemological institute of America GIA states:
"If there was a scale of difficulty in the understanding and appraisal of gemstones, then diamonds would rank as the easiest at #1 and opals as the most demanding at #10." Opal is the hardest gemstone to find, to mine, properly cut, and then to grade and price correctly.
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